


I Dream (Of Things I Can't Control)

by WhereTheMoonShinesBright



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fantasy Politics, I'm talking like Jane Austen slow burn, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Verdant Wind, Slow Burn, adding tags as we go, micro agression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 14:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhereTheMoonShinesBright/pseuds/WhereTheMoonShinesBright
Summary: "Collectively the Duscur refugees had no funds to speak of, and what little they did have was used to take care of the more recently born children.And Claude, despite his apparent initiative of total equity, had fled-- and he was the figure who had been reachable. Their Royal Grace, Byleth, was too well guarded and busy to be reached by a band of people with no money and no political power."Almost a year after the end of The Unification of Fodlan, Ashe and Dedue reunite by chance. Confronted by specters of the past and distant hopes for the future, they test the strength of the supposedly peace-filled world Claude and Byleth have created, and attempt to reclaim the home that was taken from the people of Duscur.Ch 6: "A Week in Gaspard" With their plan halted in its tracks, Dedue and Ashe take a week to ignore the circumstances of their arrangement before they decide whether they should, as they say "quit while they're ahead". A week in which they consider the lesser implications of stopping where they stand.





	1. Chapter 1

At the end of the war, Ashe had been called back to the Gaspard territories. The alliance— no not the alliance anymore— the United Kingdom of Fòdlan, for all of its difficulties in governance, had done what the officiates of the Kingdom had been unwilling to do. 

The lords had looked into Lonato’s final will and testament. The man’s intentions had been clear. Ashe, the eldest of his adopted children, was to become the proprietor of the Gaspard estate. He was to preside over the other holdings and responsibilities that the estate demanded, including the governance of the territory. Finally, Ashe was to look after the well being of Gaspard’s extended family, those related by blood and those who were not. 

Ashe had lived with the understanding that he had been sent to the Academy in order to become a knight or a soldier, and make his own way through the world. In most circumstances it was impossible—should have been impossible—for him to claim any right to the territory without a crest. 

But the world had begun to shift, even as it continued ever onward, days passing without heed of the death and the war and the ever-bleeding nature of the Goddesses people. 

The docket confirming Ashe’s authority had arrived in Lorenz’s neat scrawl, along with several copies of Lonato Gaspard’s will, a manifest for the Gaspard estate’s past tax records that could help Ashe figure out how and when to allocate funds, and a not so gentle advising that Ashe should find a well-educated and high-born wife to help him manage the household. 

Ashe sighed, sitting down at the writing desk that had once belonged to his adoptive-father. It had in truth been a few weeks since he’d received orders to return to Gaspard with his siblings, and it had been a fortnight since he had taken up residency. His siblings had not returned to the household, preferring to stay in the fort-town’s monastery. The older had been accepted as a priest into the order and was training to become a bishop, after all. The younger stated simply that they enjoyed the service. 

When Ashe arrived at the fort, where he had lived with Lonato previously, it was desolate. 

The furniture had been cleared out during the war, the fort relegated to its belligerent purpose and doing little more than holding troops and providing a sanctuary for the faithful. Ashe was, in a way, grateful for that. He was expected to take the master suite and it was… easier for the ante-chamber where Lonato had conducted his meetings— where he had read to Ashe and his younger siblings before they went to bed— to be empty. It was easier that, however it was arranged, the antechamber would be set to Ashe’s purpose and designs rather than those of his late-adoptive-father. And, as he tried every night to convince himself, it was easier for him to be forced to make the master suite his permanent residence, rather than sinking into his childhood bedroom and trying to convince himself that any lingering tension he felt was only ghosts. 

——

Ashe had always felt uncomfortably about being tended to by the servants at the fort. His younger siblings had enjoyed the attention, but they had the pleasure of only remembering the nobler part of their upbringing. Ashe had been, perhaps, just old enough for each memory to crystalize into his mind. 

He squirmed at being dressed and undressed by others, unless it was Lonato or on occasion Cristophe. Even then, he would always prefer to be the one looking after his siblings or Cristophe. He had been captivated by Cristophe, who had always been so kind to him and his siblings, never looking at them even once with the scorn he had been prepared to receive. The gentleness of it had made Ashe wish to be the one to tend after his new brother, and had resulted in some under practiced and poorly executed attempts at squiring. 

The vassal who had been left in charge of the estate while he had been gone was one of the older knights, one of the few who had not been with Lonato in the ambush on the Gaspard territories, and perhaps the only one who had not perished during the resistance against imperial invasion. He had already taken to the upkeep of the town guard. 

To Ashe’s surprise, all other matters would be dependent on himself. Rebuilding the town structures, hiring and taking oath for the territory’s knights, and hiring the estates keepers and cooks. 

It was dizzying to be sure. 

And yet Ashe had still foolishly deluded himself into believing he could handle all of the estate’s upkeep on his own. After a week of exhausting himself, of things seeming to endlessly fall into disrepair, he hired a handful of servants, a pair of cooks, a stablehand, and a task-master.

The fort was soon filled with unfamiliar faces, and his vassal, the only familiar, was beginning to allude to his own retirement.

A quarter of a year passed before he became accustomed to the feeling of being tended to. He still was insistent upon dressing and undressing himself, even where it came to armor. He would find a knight-hopeful he like well-enough to tend to that someday. But he was still a knight-hopeful himself, was he not? 

The only position he truly left unfilled was that of the groundskeeper. The greenhouse and surrounding fauna had always been tended to by Lonato and Cristophe, and then Lonato and Ashe, and if everything else had to change, he could at least hold onto that. 

——

Ashe’s siblings, for living so close, visited rarely. They asked for his aid even less. That was perhaps the most painful part of it. 

Even as the world began to grow familiar to him, he had no one to talk to. No grounding stone for familiarity. His life was far from quiet, but he thought for just one moment, if someone could ask a favor of him that he could fulfill with his own two hands he might feel just a little more empowered. 

From the Gautier territory, Sylvain wrote surprisingly often. More surprisingly, he had not heard any word from Ingrid or Felix since the war had ended. Annette’s notes were short, often with empty promises to visit during the break season at Fhirdiad’s school of magic. The only real hope he had for company was from Marianne. He was certain she would prefer staying at the monastery in Gaspard over her continued tenure as the heir to Margrave Edmund, and yet…

Once he had hired the estates task-master she had seemed at a loss, he could tell from her wording, as to what she could assist him with. 

It was all just as well. She had to worry about her own secrets, and suitors, and he knew even as his brain alighted on the idea, that Margrave Edmund would likely deny an offer of betrothal if he put one forth. 

If Marianne had fallen in love with him, perhaps that would be different. If he had formed more than a fleeting schoolboy crush on Marianne, perhaps that would be different as well. 

——

The footsteps had never echoed so loudly in Castle Gaspard. Ashe would try to chase the echoes away in his mind, and remind himself that it was because the tapestries had been removed from the stony corridors, and that the fort’s population was still a paltry sum in comparison to what it had been while Lonato was alive.

Yet his skin would still crawl ever upward, feeling like it was bunching up at his neck, as heard the footsteps— only just his own— behind him.

The worst instances were when he would climb the rounding stairs at night, not being able to see the path in front of him or behind him, and seeing the endless void come in through the loopholes of the fort’s walls. 

He reasoned that it was the small amount of exposure that made him feel so seen. He ignored the fearful inkling that he would see a shambling corpse behind him on the stair, or waiting for him further atop the steps. He ignored the memory of the few soldier’s he’d been close enough to see die, and he ignored the memory of the liquifying flesh on the corpse’s at Gronder and in Enbarr who had simply been left out too long to be identified or buried properly. He ignored the thoughts of his adoptive-father’s too still face as Thunderbrand rend through his armor like paper. 

He was sure, one night, that he saw Cristophe out of the corner of his eye, watching as he entered his room (Lonato’s room). He matched perfectly with the image that Ashe remembered from his burial rites, head sewn back where it had been severed during his execution, burial cloak ill fitting around the broadness of his shoulders. When he turned— more instinctive on fright, ready to notch an arrow and let it fly than anything else— the hall was completely empty, shadows barely moving in the flickering light.

Ashe did not look up as he entered the antechamber of his room, did not look up until he was past the second threshold and in his bed. If he covered his face with the blankets with childlike fright, not even bothering to remove the light overlay of his armor or his boots, there was no one there to see.

In the morning he had one of the servants look through the castle’s storage to dig up some of the tapestries and have them re-hung. 

And if Ashe thought the echoes were just as loud as they had been before, he did not let anyone else know. 

——

It seemed like little time had passed before the Red Wolf Moon had returned again. Most of the harvest season had been sent learning how to tally the stores, settling upon proper taxes, preparing for what shortages would inevitably come at the end of the cold-season. Then there was setting up correspondence for his expression of fealty to the Professor… or perhaps Ashe really should have begun to call them Their Grace by now.

Between the paperwork and settling the travel arrangements there had not been time to think much, which Ashe realized he was becoming increasingly grateful for. 

The only problem with being busy was there was little time to handle problems when things inevitably went wrong. 

This week, things had gone very wrong. 

Farmer’s had come in at the beginning of the week, trading in cold season goods; pickled eggs, crushed wines, cheeses, old and dying livestock to be butchered. They had also come with news. 

His vassal, his new one, a man twice his age who had been sent to him by Sylvain, had taken time to inform him that the farmers had come with some meager equipment in hand: sickles and pitchforks which were, as he was told, meant to be intimidating. For all the good it did them, Ashe felt more contention and desire to aid them over their purpling ears.

Upon seeing them, Ashe had them sit, had warm ale and bread brought for them out of the stores reserved for the still-sparse barracks.

In just minutes, the petition had turned into something more akin to gossip. 

“The lands been run a-mok,” the man said. Between the two of them it was one man one woman who had been sent to represent the farmers. It was the same who had come to file harvest reports and represent their homesteads during the tax season. “The smoke in the forests at night makes hard hunting any time.”

“Yeah. What I’m feared of is those bandits returning. The city’s strong now, yeah? But with the war over…” the woman clicked her tongue, in displeasure. “What’s to say our stores aren’t in danger? I’ve got a cousin who lives close to empire territory and says her homestead was raided at the end of the harvest.”

“If there’s been trespassing in your territory, I could send a small group of scouts out to check.” Ashe offered, even knowing he had little to spare in terms of knights. “Perhaps it’s a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding,” the woman clucked again. Then with more patience, “Suppose it might be?”

“I’d still say bandits,” the man replied.

“What you say, a group of four or five?”

“More. And s’pose its runaways from the Empire.”

“I’ll take care of it, I assure you,” Ashe cut in. He understood how the people felt about the former Empire, he truly did, but his stomach still turned to hear of its people talked about as little more than thieves and murderers. “We’ll escort them to the town and find them lodging so you can have your hunting grounds back. Is that agreeable?”

“If it takes care of the problem.”

When they left Ashe took a moment to just hold his head in his hands and ground himself. Four or five people? Realistically, four or five people were going to be harder to apprehend without conflict. And with what resources? 

Ashe left his concerns unvoiced. He was in charge now. He had made the promise, he would see it through.

——

Ashe led a group of four of his better trained guardsmen out to the countryside that day. It was strange, even being so young he realized he was probably one of the most seasoned soldiers that currently resided in Castle Gaspard. 

And even with that pressure upon him…

The moment he rode past the fort-town he immediately felt a sense of liberation. Scouting was easy. He’d always been fleet-footed, even when switching over to foot from horse. And he was far used to giving orders to less experienced troops. Without the echoing walls or the memories or paperwork of Castle Gaspard around him, he felt a limberness and curiosity creep back into his soul. He felt that young hope spread through him, the wish to be a knight, and the pleasure that he was… actually quite good on a horse, and with a bow strapped to his back. It was a reminder.

Like being strangled

Like flying. 

At a cantor, it did not take so long to get to the woods between the fort town and the farming villages. 

Once they arrived, it would be more difficult. For a full patrol of the area they could not stick near one another, which meant if there was a large group and they were hostile, it would be easy to lose one of his scouts. He had the guards pair off, and took on a third patrol on his own. 

Even embarrassed in his assuredness, Ashe was certain that he was silent enough to not be caught alone and quick enough to dodge whatever attack came his way. It had been almost a year since he had trained against Felix, but Felix had been almost inhumanly fast. Anything else would still be comparative easy to counter. 

If it kept his men safe, all the better.

Despite all the contingencies, the patrol was stillness and no noise except for the constancy of bird chatter.

Ashe was beginning to think it had been misheard rumors, or old fears over the red wolves that had led them out here, then in a careless step his foot brushed through a mush of gray colored snow. He pressed through it again, and charcoal came loose from the packed ice. 

A fire… two days old? 

He glanced around more carefully, looking for marks on the trees, leaves piled to sit under a tent, anything that would signify a second campsite. 

As his eyes passed again he finally understood the shape of a figure, which had been evidently watching, and Ashe cursed himself immediately for his hazy distraction. 

He reached for his bow first, getting ready to focus and take aim. No wonder he hadn’t noticed the figure. It was coated in armor that was nearly as bright as the snow, as scarf wrapped around its head, that probably had color but was not simply coated by the frost. And even as he reached for an arrow as a warning, he realized the figure was watching him more in curiosity than mal-intent.

“Ashe,” the voice spoke out. Strong and familiar, assured in its identification. 

And it only took Ashe a moment before the babbled and stuttering response was on his lips.

“Dedue?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit guys I’m tired. I wrote this like a man possessed, because that’s the only way I write anything.
> 
> This is obviously one of two chapters. I’ve had this as a vague idea since I finished the GD route, and… Dedue LIVES. WHY can’t I recruit him he’s one of my favorite characters. Life is suffering. 
> 
> So the next chapter will be that, but for now I’m sleep.


	2. And Yet I Do Keep Dreaming

When Dedue had been first transplanted from the constantly frigid plains of Duscur to the Faerghus’ capital in Fhirdiad, he found the cold unable to seep into him.

If he had ever been asked to reflect on why, there seemed to be a myriad of answers. He had gone numb from the loss of his mother and sister, seeing everyone he had known dead where they might have stood. The walls and sediment, once painted in bright and knotting flowers had all been charred to nighttime black and fire white. If his eyes had been red with tears, or the ash that fell from the sky like snow, he would never have been able to tell. 

Through that first year, the sorrow had stung as deep as any physical pain. It was deeper than the scars and stitches that were still healing. It was compounded upon by the wordless loneliness he felt, of being unable to talk to the only companion he had, whose name— _“Dima”, _so similar to the expression “speak to me” —was the only word he could fully grasp the meaning of. 

If the cold was just as extreme as it had been in Duscur, he felt too many other things to mind the way it seeped into his bones.  


Yet, in truth, only the northernmost part of Faeghus held the same biting wind as the mountainous villages in Duscur. 

The Kingdom was colorless. In many ways it was dead and desolate in ways Dedue had never seen in Duscur. The painted vines that crawled the towns of Duscur regardless of season, only existed upon parchment and canvas in Faerghus. The clothes, however vibrant, were typically plain and unadorned.  
  
Yet among the trees, nighttime black and fire white, the shoulder of a jacket flittered from trunk to trunk, blue as a bunting. The frost from the weathering had been melted off the very top of the jacket. He probably would have never seen him aside from that. 

Anyone from Faerghus would not have noticed that the weather was unseasonably warm, and the cloudless sky had caused the most recent snow drift to melt and harden.

What Ashe lacked in stealth he apparently made up for in speed. It had taken a moment for Ashe to spot him and half that time to ready his bow, notch, and aim his arrow. Only a second longer for him to undraw, and blink in wearied uncertainty.

Dedue should have felt relief. Any other archer would have seen him, or heard the slightly stern edge to his voice that lingered in the place of an accent, and immediately let the arrow fly. Ashe’s pull went slack the moment Dedue had spoken. 

“What are you doing out here? It’s the middle of nowhere,” Ashe’s voice came out more assured in his assessment, this time. “Some of the villagers thought you might be a group of Imperial insurgents. You caused quite a scare.”

It remained unspoken between them that 5 years prior he would have been exactly what the people feared to find lingering in the woods. Doubly unspoken that it was lucky that it had been Ashe, and not some random patrolman who had come across him.

“I was attempting to reconvene with a group of refugees from Duscur.”

Ashe put away the arrow he had taken hold of, letting it slide into place in the quiver with a an almost slick sound. “Refugees?” Ashe’s tone was lucid in its confusion. “I’m not sure if it helps, but I haven’t heard any news of the sort. Not since the very end of the war.”

It did help. If there hadn’t been any news over Duscur refugees it meant that they had passed relatively unharmed. Dedue felt, for the space of a few breaths, at ease. Yet, he felt obliged to respond, “it does not help, but thank you.”

A pensive silence spanned between them. They kept distance, poised and staring like fallow deer trying to assess their surroundings after picking up on the sound of another creatures breathing. Both afraid the other would scatter at the smallest movement. “It’s good to see you, Ashe.”

Ashe had begun the step forward after that, clasping him on the arm and pulling forward to embrace him. “I’m so happy to see you, Dedue. You ran off so suddenly after Enbarr was seized.”

“I’ve taken on new duties since the war, and I have new debts I wish to repay. That is all.”

“You never were one to leave something waiting.” He felt Ashe’s easy laugh all the way into the metal covering his forearm. 

“I believe that these current matters should be responded to swiftly. They have a better chance of succeeding now rather than later. Saying that, I should probably be leaving. Thank you for warning me of the trouble.”  
  
“Just like that?” Ashe deflated. “I know its urgent, but if you’ve been living out in the woods since the war ended, you should probably have a proper bed and meal for a few nights.”

“It has not been so long.” It had not been so much living out in the woods. He and the others had larger campsites set up, which had enough amenities to rival a smaller village. Some of the camps were still established, but a few smaller groups had set off, and Dedue was larger and more sturdy than many of his people, so he had decided to set off on his own, in a different direction. He did not bother to explain all of this. 

“Still, I insist.” Ashe had always been so eager and earnest, that it was difficult to argue. “We haven’t talked in almost six years. A lot of things have changed.” 

He thought about it for a moment. “If you’re offering, I will accept your hospitality. I may, however, leave before the end of the night.”

Ashe seemed pleased enough with that. 

Traveling to castle Gaspard ended up being a rather trying experience. As expected, none of the horses would take to Dedue’s presence. With some difficulty, Dedue managed to mount one of the horses, and it only withered slightly when it caught his imposing form out the corner of its eye. The scout he had taken it from was sent ahead on the back of a different horse. From there on began an hour long impromptu riding lesson. 

By the time they had arrived, the sun had already fallen out of the late-winter sky, and with it, Dedue’s hopes of making the visit brief also fled. He felt liberated by it almost, not having to decide whether it was prudent or not to make time to spend with old friends. And truthfully the idea of sleeping in a proper room, with a bed and hearth was seeming more appealing as they exited the wood and took upon the open fields.

Dedue had not been to the eastern territories of Faerghus since before he and his highness had settled upon joining the academy. It was more humble than he remembered. The farming and pasture lands laid around the small villages like a vast ocean of withered stalks and grass. The ice and snow made it endless and blinding until this sun set. Despite himself, he felt more at ease once he was surrounded by the stone walls of Castle Gaspard. Years of war had made solid walls and endless but narrow corridors the only places where attack did not seem somewhat imminent. It helped that it was Ashe, who seemed to direct his men’s attention before it could turn into hostility towards Dedue. 

They had gotten through dinner in relative silence, which was surprising. 

“I’m sorry,” for all it seemed, Ashe was genuinely apologetic about the silence, “I swear I had questions, I just don’t even know where to begin.”

Dedue thought it more likely that Ashe was trying to mentally step around what he could and could not ask. He had seen the expression of that kind of calculation for much of his life. 

Dedue delivered the saving grace. “Did you cook this yourself?” It was something he had learned, when he had undertaken the proper training and education to be Dimitri’s vassal, something that had saved him more than once: if the conversation it taking a sour turn, limit the topic to food and the weather. 

It seemed to work just as well on Ashe, who flushed slightly. “I don’t cook too often anymore. There’s not time with everything else.”  
  
That was a sentiment Dedue could sympathize with. 

He hummed, in a sentiment that Ashe had taken as laughter. He supposed it was as close as he had probably gotten in all the time they had known each other. 

After a moment Ashe had grown more antsy and finally asked.

“I was thinking that your cooking used to be better. I would have been disappointed if practice had made it worse.”  
  
Ashe smiled at that, redder, and looking down at his own plate.

The conversation had relaxed him out of whatever posture he had been trying to assume, it seemed, because Ashe finally asked, “Where have you been all this time, Dedue?”

The initiative of the Duscur refugees had been to petition the United Kingdom of Fodlan into allowing a political reclamation of the Kleiman territory. 

There were many obstacles that stood in the way. 

Here were the points that remained in their favor: With the fall of the Empire, and the discovery and subsequent destruction of Shambhala, the Tragedy of Duscur was no longer at the forefront of people’s minds. Duscur, it’s people, and the king that had died there had drifted from Fodlan’s concerns. It would be difficult to arouse public interest, but they would also be less likely to inspire public retaliation.

The people who had come to take the region after the people of Duscur had been driven out were also unable to properly live without heavy reliance on trade. While those in the Faerghus region had been accustomed to farming the barely arable land, they lacked the methods and crops required to be able to produce a livable harvest from the mountains. Many of the refugees were the sons and daughters of farmers. Their parents had been militia, unfortunate enough to die in the initial bought of the slaughter, and fortunate enough to be too far from home to accidentally lead any soldiers to where their children lay tucked away in the mountains. Many of them still remembered the methods and skills their parents had taught them, and so, even if they could not convince the Kingdom of Fodlan to give them the land completely they might still be able to negotiate with the young Lord Kleiman. 

For the points against them, there were still too many.

His highness, of all the things he had tried to do, had failed to prove the innocence of Duscur’s people. It was not a promise he could truly hold against him. He had not expected it to happen in any case.

Collectively the Duscur refugees had no funds to speak of, and what little they did have was used to take care of the more recently born children. 

And Claude, despite his apparent initiative of total equity, had fled-- and he was the figure who had been reachable. Their Royal Grace, Byleth, was too well guarded and busy to be reached by a band of people with no money and no political power. 

And so, as dismal as it seemed, a petition against the crown was the most reasonable hope they had, and it needed to be done before the people in the Faerghus region remembered their hatred for the people of Duscur.

Ashe listened in silence as Dedue recounted this in more or less words. His food, however distasteful it had been when they sat down, was even more so cold and he pushed through the last of it while Ashe sat across from him, chin propped on top of his hands. 

“But suppose there _was _something I could do to help you.” When he met Ashe’s eyes again, the light seemed to catch them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I foolishly insinuated this was going to be two chapters long? It has a more defined plot now, which I'll be chipping through as we go. I'm going to say it will be 5 chapters but... that's subject to change. 
> 
> Sorry this all took so long! I've been having technical difficulties with my computer, and I do have another way to write now if they return/continue, so I'm hoping my updates on everything will be more regular.
> 
> And as always if you have any questions or want to talk to me you can find me @chinupking on twitter.


	3. Chapter 3

Ashe felt immediately ashamed in his assuredness that he could help the people of Duscur, and yet as Dedue spoke, he saw holes that could easily be filled.

It was like the first few days after returning to castle Gaspard. Gaps in a wall were hard to fill unless you were a stone mason— in which case it only took a matter of days. But a stonemason still needed someone to carry the carved stones away, and lay them into the wall.

That was to say, Dedue was refined— at least more refined than Ashe in the ways of attending Fodlan’s court. He wasn’t sure, but surely being as unobtrusive as he was, and besides that being allowed to vassal for the what-would-have-been future king, he must have had more political training than Ashe, of whom nothing had been expected of.

He had explained it just that way to Dedue the night before. In return, he had received a nod and a slight down-turned twitch of the lips, which he hoped meant Dedue had understood what he was trying to explain. Or at least that Dedue was willing to wait for a more in-depth explanation.

So there they were, the next day, in the antechamber of the master bedroom. 

Ashe was pleased to see that Dedue had been carrying civilian clothes with him, some homespun wool tunic and pants that were brightly adorned near the hems and did not sport any of the buckles or straps that would be needed to secure armor in place. Underneath was a simpler, darker colored linen fabric which was equally as inconspicuous. Not to say that Ashe had expected Dedue to arrive at his room still fully armored, but he’d never seen Dedue in anything short of a uniform. It was unexpected and, maybe, comforting. 

Ashe had been reading a variety of letters and reports to Dedue, and handing them off as he finished them to receive comment. He had woken some hours before sunrise, and gotten to work recovering the items from the letter-box which he thought would be more useful to the atmosphere surrounding Dedue’s cause. 

Most of the correspondences were chilly, at best. If the former-alliance had been steadfast on producing a less crest-based society, the former-kingdom territories had been somewhat of a failure. The duchy of Gautier was the only one that could really be considered friendly, and only thanks to Sylvain. The Barony of Dominic and the Duchy of Fraldarius were only lukewarm because Annette had convinced her uncle to be obliging, and because Duke Rodrigue vaguely remembered him from Felix’s (apparently frequent) letters from the academy. Lord Kleiman had not contacted Ashe since his appointment, and Lord Galatea had been equally as unresponsive. And with all the rest in consideration, Ashe had decided it best to avoid the current inheritance disagreement that had arisen over the Blaiddyd territories. That, he could tell, had lost him some amount of respect with Duke Fraldarius and Baron Dominic, and gained him some with Margrave Gautier, who would soon step down anyways. 

It was easier, reading all of these correspondences, to understand that his sense of morality and obligation had caused him to play all his cards at the wrong times. 

Ashe handed the last of the correspondences between him and the lords— the _ other _lords— to Dedue, picked up a mug of bitter black tea he’d abandoned an hour ago, and perched on the edge of the desk that was closest to where Dedue was sitting. He tried to hold in a shudder as the flavor spread along the width of his forehead and down between his shoulder blades, loosening the ache in his muscles from yesterday’s ride. His mind milled slowly back towards the issue at hand, “I realize now that maybe this isn’t so useful after all,” he said gesturing at the discarded pile of letters.

“Perhaps,” Dedue folded the parchment and put it back in the letter box. “Margrave Gautier did have a significant amount of political power. His opinion isn’t nothing.”

He was being placated. Dedue was placating him, and he almost wanted to laugh to receive some feeling of helplessness. They both knew it wasn’t enough. 

“In any case, the most important letter is this one.” Ashe handed a gilded letter to Dedue, one that had been on his desk for two weeks since it had come, bearing the crest of flames. 

It was a summons for Ashe to swear fealty to the United Kingdom of Fodlan. 

It had scarcely been a year since the end of the war, since Fodlan had been vindicated of the sins of Nemesis, of the sins of Seiros and the very goddess herself, and yet the professor had already become something very lofty in Ashe’s mind. It was difficult to think that their king, their archbishop, was the very same man who had stood silently in the cathedral next to Ashe after his father’s death.

Worse, Ashe was one of the first lords from the former-Kingdom being asked to swear fealty. Ashe had placed it off to the side, knowing it had to be a calculated political move for him, but to what extent? It would almost certainly gain him allies in the former-Alliance, maybe even some in the former-Empire. But those were not the allies he’d need if a famine came, or if Sreng breached the northern border. There were favors he could call in _ maybe _with some of the alliance merchant companies, but they would be unreliable and possibly too far out of reach to be of immediate assistance. 

It wasn’t an ideal situation for the future of the Gaspard territories.

But it did work for the Duscur refugee’s purposes.

“You have an audience with the Archbishop.”

Ashe loosened the unintentionally tight grip on his cup. “While you were talking last night, I realized I could take you with me and let the archbishop listen to your petition.”

Dedue looked at the paper thoughtfully again. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“No, I’m not. I don’t really have the head for these kinds of things, really.”

“I don’t think we should go immediately to the Archbishop.”

“No?”

“No.”

“But you do think _ we _should go to the Archbishop. Together, I mean,” Ashe smiled. “You think it could work.”

“I think it could work,” Dedue smiled back, at least for a moment. His mind had seemingly reattached itself to whatever plan he was formulating. “Even if the Archbishop does listen to the petition, if the other lords don't support it, it will ultimately fail. Or lead to a territory skirmish.” 

“Ah, I… I hadn’t thought about that.”

He could reason, certainly, that the Kleiman’s would fault him for helping the people of Duscur. And swearing fealty to the archbishop wasn’t such a stretch, considering all the lords would have to do it. He did realize that being the first to do it put him in a vulnerable position, however. He hadn’t considered the possibility that it might lead to a physical feud. 

Dedue finally picked up his long neglected cup, and a steady silence smoothed between them. He realized Dedue’s tea was probably as cold as his had become. If it was, he said nothing. He looked down at the cup in his own hands and ignored the brief impulse to pour the remnants of the cup on the correspondences they had read through. Instead he downed the rest of it, and let the next shudder wake him. He couldn’t ignore the tight feeling in his stomach, but being in castle Gaspard had felt suffocating the entire time. He considered his options and found nothing that brought him any clarity.

Yet, with someone else in the study-room the silence was something more manageable. It was soothing even. Ashe let his heel hit the leg of the desk a few times, with a repetitive thunk that seemed to even out his thoughts. He had been doing this almost completely alone, and he hadn’t been doing well. “I wasn’t trying to be clever or dismissive when I said I didn’t have a head for these things. I could help both of us if I was a better diplomat. Where do I even start?”

The answer was something already ached into Dedue’s face. Something he had clearly decided before they had lapsed into silence. “You need Duke Fraldarius’ approval.”

“I’m not sure I can…” Ashe cradled the porcelain cup in his hands like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to his propriety. “I’m not sure I can approach Duke Fraldarius to ask him for a favor.”

Dedue shook his head, releasing a deep breath. “You don’t need to ask him for any favors. Not yet.”

“Really, though. Would that be alright?”

“There are other ways if it's something you’re not comfortable with, Ashe.” 

Ashe was quick to stop himself from asking for a different answer. He wishes he were in the chair now, so he could let it support his weight. “No, it's clearly what you think the best step would be or else you wouldn’t have offered it so readily.”

“Duke Fraldarius is charismatic, and held together a resistance in the Kingdom for almost 6 years. If you need a friend to increase your influence, he would be the most effective.”

“He would also be the worst person to have hate me.”

“I think you give yourself too little credit. Duke Fraldarius likes people who are truthful and earnest. I don’t think you will have have to do much posturing to convince him.”

Ashe felt his cheeks tint. He remembered when Lonato would try to assuage him of his guilt when he’d done something wrong, or how the professors at the academy would scold students for second guessing themselves. 

“Alright,” Ashe laughed off the… probably inadvertent compliment and pressed on. “Alright, we’ll give it a shot.”

——

When Ashe had laid out the metaphor of the stonemason and bricklayer, he had made the assumption that Ashe was the stonemason and Dedue was the bricklayer. It was what any other nobleman in Ashe’s position would have meant. 

But it was not what the Ashe he had known during the academy days would have meant. And it is not what Ashe had meant, speaking to Dedue as a lord offering a commoner a favor. 

In offering guidance he had come to realize that he was the perceived expert, and that did admittedly make him nervous. Both of Ashe’s failure and his own. 

Still, if he could help Ashe become a better diplomat— guide him while he was gaining his own feet, he could accept Ashe’s help without owing yet another debt. 

Dedue was somewhat pleased when Ashe had suggested they move to the greenhouse. The silence was easier, the location was secure, and the air smelled of rot and growth moving together in its own delicate ecosystem; it wore away at invisible edges that Dedue could scarcely recognize in himself until they were gone. It had been part of what he had liked about the greenhouse at the academy, and even though this one was less grand in design and capacity Dedue had far more attached to him now that needed to be worn away. 

He was rarely, if ever, happy. However, he had come to the conclusion that having moments of peace was almost, if not more, valuable than having moments of happiness.

Ashe had sat down on the stone, leaning back against one of the risen flower beds, ignoring the wooden bench at the end of the row. Dedue had already asked to look after the plants, and had begun trying to identify which he did and did not recognize. 

Ashe had begun to pen the letter on a wooden board he’d brought from his study. It would be a rough draft the could be copied and sealed more precisely once they had worked through what needed to be said. 

Lord Rodrigue was a man ruled almost entirely by truth and honor, even if he let his personal feelings change what either of those things were defined as. Dedue had never had a reason to dislike him. Then again, that was when they had a shared priority: Dimitri. 

Now that their goals differed, it was difficult to say how either of them would feel about the other. 

Ashe had already started scratching out the agreed first section of the address. He would ask Duke Fraldarius about the years harvest, and Ashe would remark upon his own. 

Dedue picked among the plants, checking their leaves for yellowing and warping, checking the pretty out of season flowers for spots. He had often thought of talking to the flowers, like Mercedes did, but he found something more valuable and understanding in the silence shared between them. They were all moved from where they were meant to be, grown out of their season, and left to adapt to their new surroundings however hostile or friendly. He realized near the end of his academy days that him and Mercedes had shared that understanding— between them— with the plants, however strange that seemed.

He really did try not to linger on the academy. It had been a short and truthfully unremarkable part of his life. But it was also one of the few parts of his life, since Duscur, that had been even-just-occasionally good.

And then there was the truth of it. He was trying to ignore some aspects of what he knew to be true about the present. 

Some were more pleasant. The narrow path of the greenhouse left him with little room and he was carefully to pick up his feet fully as he stepped around where Ashe had balanced the writing board on his thighs, holding it up at an angle like a scribing desk. It was a close fit, and held a familiarity he realized didn’t feel forced. The garden had been tended well, obviously not often. There weren’t any bugs or aphids clinging to the plants, but there was regular growth issues which might stem from under fertilization, sunburn, or just watering inconsistencies. It was nice, regarding something that needed such careful attention and being allowed to give it.

Then there were the issues he had been trying to avoid. Dedue had his own letters to write and send. He doubted, even if the plan ultimately failed, that he would catch up with the rest of the traveling parties. They had to be informed. Or they needed at least as much information as could be assured not to start rumors. 

Which was… a fair point.

“I will probably be here for a considerable amount of time, if we are to do this together.”

“Probably,” Ashe hummed as he moved his attention from writing to the conversation. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“Some rumors might start to pop up the longer I’m here. It would be… problematic if someone figured out our plan before we revealed it.”

Dedue could see where worry lines had begun to embed themselves in Ashe’s brow. “We can’t just say you’re just visiting an old friend?”

“For a week or so.” 

Ashe looked down at the paper again, tilted so Dedue couldn’t see his expression. Could only hear the consternation that came in the returned, “I see.”

Dedue returned to the plants. Him and Ashe would think of something to assuage other people's suspicions once it became a problem. It was never too early to start thinking about it. That and if they waited for rumors to appear, they might be able to twist and take advantage of them depending on what they were. They had time to consider their course of action, in any case.

Dedue had nearly finished tending to the first garden bed when Ashe triumphantly placed the letter into his hands, heedless of the dirt. “Let me know what you think.”

_ Duke Rodrigue Fraldarius, _

_ I hope the winter’s been as mild for you as it’s been here. The longer the warm weather continues the more concerned I am about a late winter frost. I think we’ve planned well enough in advance. Still, I’ve heard Fraldarius tends to be a little more frigid during the mid-winter. I have to admit I still don’t know about tending the farmland here enough to know whether you share the same concerns. _

_ This may seem like a strange favor to ask. I hired a new gardener recently. _

_ It’s actually Dimitri’s— may the Goddess watch over him— vassal, Dedue. He’s trying to help me recover some of the touchier greenhouse fruit plants that died during the war. I’d be willing to trade something similar if you’d lend us your hospitality and let him take a look around. _

_ We’d like to start transplanting near the end of the moon if we can. If that doesn’t work within your time frame, that’s okay, too! _

_ I’m eagerly looking forward to your reply, _

_ Lord Ashe Ubert _

“I know you said not to ask him for a favor, but I thought this would be non-imposing enough.”

“I think it will work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself I was going to update this about 4 days ago, but I ended up expanding the chapter. I'm also going to go ahead and add that slowburn tag in case any of us (me) forget that this is supposed to be a pairing fic. 
> 
> I also am going to/have updated the summary since I had a quote from the first chapter as my summary and that's not very helpful now is it?
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> If you want to talk to me or ask me questions you can also always follow my twitter @chinupking


	4. Chapter 4

The grey velvet of the large arm chair slipped occasionally in Dedue’s hands as he and Ashe worked to move it into the study room of Ashe’s chambers. If it were made of a finer fabric, woven in a tighter weave, it would have caught against every crevice in Dedue’s skin, blaming him for the tarnishing and balding the chair had under taken. Instead, the fuzz of the fabric stayed in place, glued together by the years of dust and damp it had accumulated. There was no need, as they shoved it through the looping stairs, to worry about damaging it any further. 

Once it was inside of the room Ashe had not moved to take a place on it to rest, only bent to his knees and let his forehead fall forward to the arm of the cushion. 

“At least we’ll only have to do that once,” Ashe coughed. And then coughed more, before dropping away from the couch altogether. “Maybe I shouldn’t be breathing this stuff in.”

Dedue wiped disdainfully at the fabric of the back cushion again. “I’ll dust it off before we start work.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about that. It was moved into storage just after me and my siblings arrived. It’ll probably start falling apart if you prod at it too much,” and recalling Dedue’s thoughts on the couch while they had been moving it, he had little to say in argument. Ashe stood up to his full height again, “Anyways, we’ve made a bad habit of working past lunch. We should probably eat before we commit to anything else.”

Dedue nodded in acquiescence. The day after they had revised and sent Ashe’s request to Lord Rodrigue, a snow drift had floated in. The winds hadn’t been violent, and the weather hadn’t been particularly foul, but the snow had been constant. With the outside of the castle fort blocked off, and with no foot traffic in or out of the castle town, it had been as good of an excuse to begin their lessons as any.

That was where the couch had come in. The weather had taken 4 days to turn and become mild, and by noon it had been decided the messenger would leave the next day. Even assuming the weather would remain good, it would be another four days before a messenger made it to Fraldarius and longer still for them to return.

And so Ashe had decided that working on other sides of the, admittedly large desk, was not especially productive. They had been taking turns looming over one side or another, pointing, explaining. This, Ashe had assured, would be far easier. And when Ashe had undertaken procuring one of the seats that was abandoned in the castle-forts overfilled storage room, Dedue found himself unable to leave the task entirely to someone else. 

Ashe had taken to scooting the couch closer to the desk. Dedue pressed a hand to the opposite side to help it along and it slid into place, even as it scraped disconcertingly along the stone floor. It was still at a decent height for writing, and even though Dedue had long ago lost his opinion on how tolerable any necessary task should be, it did already seem like a much more comfortable arrangement.

He and Ashe exchanged a glance, looking over their admittedly unimpressive handy work. Ashe smiled at it anyways. “Everything in steps,” he offered as Dedue raised an eyebrow. “I’ll get us food while you set up what we’re working on today.”

Even as Ashe departed, Castle Gaspard stayed awake and moving around them. The building breathed like a large stone beast, similar to the monstrosities that the Empire, or those who slithered in darkness—who could truly say anymore?— had created during the war. Most of the castles in Faerghus carried huge internal drafts due to the crevices and windows that allowed the fort to function during wartime. 

The draft was only more potent due to the fire that burned in the hearths of the individual bedrooms. It worked, one of Dimitri’s tutors had said, as a way to block out sensitive conversations from prying ears. 

War and diplomacy constantly danced around one another. If one aided in another, could it truly be taken as coincidence?

The war had, in fact, cut away a lot of the information that needed to be transmitted between them. 

Letters and correspondences had gone by quickly. Ashe had been the one who had hunched over the desk that day, watching as Dedue turned the last year of correspondences into little more than examples and lessons. In one hand he held a quill and bracketed and underlined words, in the other another paper with similar wording or structure. Every now and then Ashe nodded his assent, filled in words that Dedue might have said had Ashe not begun outlining his own understanding.

It had only been a moment of silence, a second to regroup Dedue’s own thoughts before Ashe was murmuring apologies at his side.

“During the war I was… I was taught how to read correspondences for information.” Hence how Ashe could read between the lines of the letters, interpret what the other lords truly meant to express through their words and mannerisms. 

“You were a spy?”  
  
Ashe’s voice cracked on an exhaled, “hardly.”

“For a while, no one knew I had defected to the Church. Shamir thought it would be… advantageous for me to snoop around some of the camps, and then I started intercepting letters, and after it was common knowledge I continued doing the same things just more… discreetly. I didn’t pretend to be anyone else or… climb walls. Anything like that.”

Dedue didn’t think spies did anything like that anyway, and said as much. To which Ashe simply shrugged.

And that had been that. It had been work to unravel what Ashe knew from what Ashe was trained to pretend he didn’t know. Some of it was simpler. Writing and receiving letters was easy, but he had to teach Ashe how to construct letters with same formula. Balancing ledgers was more difficult, and time consuming. 

Today would be negotiating, Dedue had decided. That would be more immediately necessary. The snow had been a blessing to these lessons, as it negated the possibility of villagers making trips in to file complaints. Even with that, it was impractical for either of them to give into the idea that Ashe could learn years of diplomacy in only a few days. 

When Ashe came back, food laid out, he immediately picked up one of the documents Dedue had laid out and half-consciously Dedue had snatched it back away. He looked at Ashe, bruised under the eyes and shiny from a light sheen of sweat. 

“We’ve been covering this information rather quickly.”  
  
Dedue watched Ashe gaze up at him, recognizing the manic exhaustion he felt in his own brain and seeing it run its course through Ashe. The other man nodded slightly, and leaned back into the couch.

“We could always review what we’ve gone over. I… I think I’m getting the hang of the ledgers now but—“

Dedue picked up one of the plates and placed it in Ashe’s lap, not waiting for him to accept it. “Review is unnecessary. We’ll be doing it in a few weeks. Now that you know the information it will be more effective for you to do it practically than trying to absorb the information without example.”

Ashe seemed to harden at this, and Dedue realized that he hadn’t seen Ashe angry or frustrated. It looked out of place. And it only reaffirmed Dedue’s opinion. There wasn’t much more they could accomplish without commencing the actual plan.

“Well what are we going to do then? We can't just sit here and wait, can we?”

Dedue placed a utensil in Ashe’s hand, and he accepted it without seeming to think about it. His eyes were still glued to the other in some wary defiance. 

“We’re going to do something we have control over.”

Prudence was necessary.

——

Ashe hated writing back and forth. When he was younger it had been quite exciting. He hadn’t known how to read or write for most of his life, and so to be able to write letters back and forth between his siblings and Lonato, to be able to hear about them so far away, had been thrilling.

Now…

It wasn’t quite so excruciating as some of the other things he had to do now, but it was it’s own necessary pain. Responses could be so tentative. Having every word correct, and double checking the meanings and hidden meanings of every phrase turned correspondence into an archer’s volley. He couldn’t even be too frank in his messages to his siblings in case the letters got intercepted. How distant he must seem to them now. 

A week had passed since the messenger had been sent out towards Fraldarius. Realistically, it would be a few more days before Lord Rodrigue’s reply arrived in Gaspard, and that was if Lord Rodrigue had decided to write back immediately. More likely it would be another week before he received the return. 

He had continued in his normal duties, of course, but most of his time was spent mentally checking off the information from Dedue’s lessons, worrying over the mail, and now this. 

Ashe worked some dough in his hands. It was like sand, really. Like the wet sand you found along the northern border, that was half frozen for most of the year. It had life in it though, like clay. It seemed to respond to emotion, becoming harder to knead and lay out the more frustrated you were, and becoming so lovely and light if you treated it with patience and care. 

Dedue stood behind him, on an adjacent counter. There were several to choose from, the kitchen being almost cavernous in nature. It had been built with a capacity to entertain a number of personal guests, the familial household, and the live-in staff. With how avoided the Gaspard region had been of late, it seemed impossible that the kitchen would ever be used to its full intention again. 

Such space hadn’t been necessary since well before Christophe’s death, and it was much too large for just two cooks. Yet, Dedue’s presence seemed to even it out. Not just because Dedue was bulky— he was— but because Dedue’s intention and careful instruction, and the smell of his cooking distracted and reduced the kitchen to just the space where the two of them were standing and working together. 

Well, except for when the occasional mousing cat would knock something over. Sound reverberated too well off the stone walls.

Because of that, he and Dedue rarely talked while they were in the kitchen. Surely, if they talked about the plan it would be easy enough to overhear. 

Dedue’s work with the vegetables ceased, from what Ashe could hear, and he was now next to him inspecting the state of the dough. He hummed thoughtfully. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve made these, but this,” he touched a section of it and it made a clear indent where his finger had pressed in, “seems right. You learn quick.”

“At least in this,” Ashe demures. If he’s a quick-learner in anything else… they’ll see. It had been days since the last lesson they had done, and Ashe’s head was still buzzing with new information. Even the smallest amount of non-stress-related focus made his brain freeze. But the kitchen was comforting and familiar, little more than practiced movements and subconscious action.

And he concedes, warily, that Dedue was right to halt their lessons. Even if he has been secretly pouring over his notes.

“Here you have direct control over everything,” he had said. And as Ashe did the motions, and as Dedue taught him new ones, he realized that it was the most in control of anything Ashe had felt in the last 6 years. 

He didn’t even feel the same stinging sense of obligation when Dedue ushered him away from the counter with an, “I’ll take over from here.”

Ashe watched as Dedue mixed water into the dough to make it more sticky. He had shown Ashe, but Ashe was less familiar with how it should feel. If it got too sticky, then more flour had to be added, and if more flour had to be added then it ran the risk of toughening and becoming unworkable. It had to be done right the first time, or it had to be restarted. 

Restarted. Starting over, with a blank slate. It wasn’t possible with most things. The ledger and maximum rationing left them with very few tries in their cooking lessons. Through the sparing conversation of last few days, Dedue and Ashe had shared that they were both far accustomed to only one chance in cooking. They hadn’t had to take any second chances yet. But the possibility was always there. For renewal. 

Even with routine paper work and meetings, it had been a refreshing few days. 

It was not lost on him how much he’d missed having human contact like this, as well. 

“You’re staring, Ashe.”

And he had indeed been staring. Maybe not intentionally at Dedue, but in his direction in any case. And maybe not intently, but enough where he could see the subtle shifts of posturing Dedue was taking in reaction to being watched. “Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

That wasn’t enough. Ashe continued, “I was thinking about how empty the castle’s been. It wasn’t like this at all when I was younger. Having you around has made it seem a little less empty and intimidating though, so thank you.”

It seemed very faintly like Dedue was blushing, continuing with the posturing and clearing his throat. “You should go clean up before dinner,” Dedue’s tone was smooth, maybe a bit embarrassed. “You’re covered in flour.”

“Oh, of course.”

It was uncomfortable and avoidant, and Ashe worried for just a moment that he had said something wrong. Dedue caught his eye for a moment and darted away. “Being here has been good for me as well. Thank you.”

Ashe smiled, offering a short promise to leave and return quickly.

The moment Ashe walked into the study, his soiled shirt was forgotten. A pile of new correspondences was being lain out by his retainer, who gave him a perfunctory greeting and the list of things that still needed attending to. 

If Ashe’s clothes were as bad as he believed them to be, no comment was made during the debriefing. Before departing, one more letter was deposited directly into Ashe’s hands. 

On it was the crest of Fraldarius. Ashe rushed around the table to get a knife to cut the lip of the parchment away from it’s seal, accidentally slicing his finger with it as he pulled it from the drawer. 

It only took a scan of it to get the answer he was looking for. He was as quick as he’d ever been running down the corridors and back down to the kitchen.

He was breathless as he turned the last corner, but Dedue noticed his arrival without the need for verbal communication. They locked eyes easier this time, and something in Ashe flashed hot and triumphant. 

“We’re leaving for Fraldarius tomorrow,” Ashe managed.

It was the first step. Just the first step. 

But as Dedue’s mouth tilted upward, Ashe smiled as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote half of this immediately after I posted the last chapter and then I just couldn't decide what to do, since this really is kind of just a transitory chapter into the rest of the story.
> 
> In short I have a lot of the rest of the fic actually figured out. I have scenes from future chapters done. I would like to start updating this twice a month but I can't make any promises. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you want to talk I'm available always @chinupking on twitter
> 
> Edit: 
> 
> I did a quick run through of how I expect this to progress based on the scenes and excerpts I've pre-written. It should be 10 chapters and an Epilogue (so 11 chapters in total), and my rough estimate for the final word count is 30k. This is the lower end of my expected output, though. It's entirely possible that I'll end up increasing the chapter count as I get close to the end.
> 
> I'm so looking forward to writing this out! Until next time.


	5. Duke Fraldarius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up not being nearly as steadfast in writing as I had planned to be unfortunately. I have had the larger portion of this done for a long time, but I was having trouble getting the middle content to work out and having trouble planning how things in this chapter will affect the rest of the fic, and how certain things need to happen for everyone’s motives to make sense. It finally came to me though.
> 
> I’ve also been super on the struggle bus with my general state of existing. I hope the length makes up for the wait.
> 
> I should also mention I'm sorry if there's more mistakes in the text than usual. I didn't want to hold onto this for any longer, but it is also a lot more text than I normally have to proofread before posting. I'll be cleaning it up throughout the next 10 hours or so.

By nightfall, Ashe’s legs burned at the heel and hip and felt numb everywhere in-between. 

There was something long-ago-written about the burden of idle minds and idle hands, and it could be applied to the perfect pedagogy of travel. It had taken Ashe only a few minutes to set the travel arrangements into motion. He had plenty of time to lay the groundwork in the down time left by the snowstorm.

He and Dedue had departed earlier that day on war-time messenger horses. The creatures were nearly mindless when they performed their duty, not frightened by stray shadows and gusts of wind, and unable to remove themselves from their set upon purpose without a horseman’s say so. They would continue to their destination without a rider, they would weather any injury. And most importantly, they could travel the span between Gaspard and Fraldarius with only one change of reins. It was unforgiving to the out of practice, impossible for an unseasoned horsemen, and yet Ashe had decided he himself had quite enough practice and Dedue’s physique would carry him well enough.

Watching Dedue dismount, it was a fair bet. He seemed more steady on his feet than Ashe himself felt. There was normally some amount of commotion when Dedue handled the horses, but they didn’t stir at all, not even when their reins had been handed off to the man who had ensured the arrival of their fresh horses for the next day's trip. 

It would not have taken too long per-se for them to have made the trip on a standard mount, but with the Faerghus territory melted into its first false-spring, Ashe wouldn’t take on the risk of an unexpected snowstorm— he hadn’t even taken the risk that any of the war horses had been exercised enough to make the full trip in a single day. Still, even knowing the world would soon freeze over and the sun would be covered by an iron-frost covering of clouds, he breathed in the frigid air and let himself believe the fields would soon flood into the flawless verdancy of the northern summer.

The sun had fallen entirely out of the sky, and the cloudless expanse of night air was passably warm over winter clothes. They had not left at an early hour. Ashe had to make sure the books were balanced for his week away, and his retainer had asked for— what ended up being— weak instruction on how the estate should be run in his absence. 

Similarly, Dedue had work to do playing the charade of groundskeeper. A break in the weather, and a full melt of the recent snow drift meant certain sections of the garden could be tarped in preparation against the last deep freeze of winter. It was something, in honesty, Ashe would have liked to help with. It was something, in honesty, he never would have had time to do on his own. 

Pointing at a map, they had covered a little under half the distance between Gaspard and Fraldarius in a day, stopping at an inn that had been chosen well ahead of time as well. Ashe had remembered it from his independent missions across the north. It was a true inn, one of the few not hastily converted into rebellion barracks before the war had picked up enough speed to be called a war, and one of the few not converted to a public house to appease a crowd intent to slog past their worries into a more pleasant haze. Surely more would join its number, but for the time being it was a warm lit, hearty smelling, rarity.

Their saddlebags had been handled by a young woman working for the proprietress, while she herself sat them down to eat. There was a long moment of silence that spanned between them after she waltzed herself away to retrieve the provisionary dinner.

They hadn’t spoken all day. They really hadn’t even spoken before they left. There was time now. Space to breathe and talk and be. 

And yet Ashe was all but falling forward onto his forearms in exhaustion. He moved to do so, but didn’t quite make it there, elbows propped on table, shoulders stacked above elbows. He could do another day of riding, but he would need to spend every day they had in Fraldarius relatively stationary if they would ever make it back to Gaspard.

Dedue looked none the worse for ware, but it was difficult to read him sometimes. It wasn’t that he was particularly closed off, just that if you weren’t talking to him, it sometimes seemed as if he was in some other place far away. “Are you going to be okay for another day on messenger horses.” Dedue’s attention was caught by the words, back on the present. “We traveled a long way today. We could do two more days at normal pace if that works better.”

Dedue stopped for a moment, rubbing at his legs consciously, and with some consideration responding. “The horses don’t mind me.”

Ashe fell a little more heavy into his elbows. “No. I guess there’s no telling if we can get another one to take to you.” So, another day of endless riding. Ashe was ready to sleep.

“Why do they behave so strangely?”

“Oh, right. You never took any cavalry exams, did you?”

“It would have been difficult. Pointless.” And, Ashe couldn’t find himself able to disagree.

“Well…. firstly, messenger horses are bred and trained for the specific task. They were a little hard to come by at the beginning of the war since most of them were in the Goneril territory. A lot of the ones from the western Kingdom were killed or surrendered during the rebellion.” Ashe gave himself a pause, he’d effectively danced around the question. It wasn’t what he’d meant to do. “There’s not much use for them after the war is over, and they can’t be used for anything else. They have more endurance, but they’re also less tactile and strong. They would trample anyone if you tried to use them for cart pulling.”

“So, they’re like soldiers in a way.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess they are.” Ashe’s fingers drummed before just a moment. The thought was too unnerving, really, to be left unargued. “But soldiers still have people and families to go to once a war is finished. They can always return to the lives they had, or find a new one.”

“Can they? I’m not so sure.”

Ashe’s mouth gaped in a beginning response. Maybe even a chastisement for the dreary thought, and what it meant about them and what they were doing. 

The proprietress cut off that thought, placing a bowl of grain and broth and meat in front of each of them. Not quite a soup, but almost. There was a moment of nods and barely audible thank-yous before the world slipped back into the tensionless version of itself it had been. 

Ashe picked up one of the deep spoons given to them and stirred his food, not quite readying it to be labeled up and out of the bowl. “In any case, the horses are trained through exposure. They’re trained more vigorously than war horses because they can’t stop, not for anything, and they have to be exercised for speed at the same time.” Dedue’s comment rang in his head. “They’re also often drugged a lot in their early years to hasten their progress. By the time their training is finished there’s not much left to them.”

The lines at the edge of Dedue’s cheeks deepened themselves with his frown. “That seems a poor life to lead.”

Ashe nodded, “Well, at least that puts one difference between us and them right?” He finally brought a spoonful up to his mouth. The smell was as thin as the following taste, but it was good enough to bring the ache away from his legs for one moment. 

Dinner passed quickly after that. The food didn’t warrant eating with any relish it seemed, and the world settled into the familial agreement of peace and quiet that the knowledge of other’s resting nearby usually brought.

As Ashe laid down. The walls and floor boards shifted in response to the night air cooling outside. The images flashed behind his eyelids, people killed and battles won. There were handfuls of faces he was afraid he might still see when he opened his eyes, so that he was completely subdued into keeping them shut. 

He wondered if Dedue had been correct. For Ashe, the Plague had never ended. The rebellion had never ended. The war had never ended. Not really. They followed him everywhere. Dedue, he knew, was carrying them around with him as well. 

And once they had finished this mission, what was left for them to do?

——

Castle Fraldarius and its surrounding town may have very well been counted a city, even though it lacked the fine and extensive architecture that lingered about Fhirdiad. It was a great deal larger, in any case, than the town of Gaspard, who’s tradesmen and families barely stretched a mile past the castle wall. Fraldarius was prosperous, it hosted a few larger towns, but the castle town remained the heart of the territory. 

Dedue’s legs weighed into the stone road leading up to the castle gate, the horse coming along easily as he led it by the reins. People bartered for goods, children sang and laughed off with their friends, away from their parents, the smell of food vendors spirited away the smells of the beasts of burden who had carried the goods to the marketplace. He had tried to give some last minute advisement to Ashe, on how to approach the Duke, and remind him of what to say, but even the depth of his own voice was minimal in the vast ocean of chatter they were swimming through. 

There was jovial air about it, not diminished by the rotting doors and window panes which had suffered from neglect during the war, and if anything aided by the wooden constructs that replaced the stone bridges and brick houses which had been lain into by some siege. 

The world closer to the castle was a different story. Workmen bustled about in the tight lines of soldiers. Their efficiency boasted of a change in career, maybe two or three. Dedue had seen how many men had turned from militia to proper soldiers during the resistance. A few career knights were dotted amongst the numbers as well, and a few brandishing and marking manifests were placed at the gate, there to meet them as they walked forward. 

There was a call to halt, and a few of the men stood readily at attention. “State your business,” the one closest ordered, face damp and red under his helmet, despite the winter wind. 

“I have an audience with Duke Fraldarius.”

The knight stood steady, unimpressed. “You can only seek a permit for market space on non-market days. You will have to return tomorrow.” 

“I’m not a merchant,” Ashe’s face became visibly redder for just a moment. Dedue wondered for just a moment, before Ashe recovered, if he shouldn’t have insisted on masquerading as an envoy. “I’m Lord Ubert. Here from Gaspard. I have an invitation for visitation from Lord Rodrigue.”

It thankfully only took a moment for Ashe to pull the letter from a pocket inside his coat, and hand it to the guard. “Lord Ubert, of course.” By the time Ashe the exchange had been made, however, the other guards had already become somewhat fixated on Dedue. There was little love to be gained by the people of Fraldarius. Whenever Lord Rodrigue had needed an audience with Rufus or Dimitri he had always been the one to travel. Lord Rodrigue would rarely provide counsel to the reagent without Dimitri’s presence and the people of Fraldarius had, especially in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, been cruel in a way Dimitri had not allowed to be repeated. Though there was obviously more… restraint, it seemed little had changed.

“I’m here a bit early. We rode ahead of the rest of our convoy. The rest are a few days behind.” The guards attention had been directed back towards Ashe, whose tone had become more authoritative after that initial embarrassment. “If you could let the Duke know I’ve arrived? And if you could have someone escort me to the stable master. I’d like to make proper arrangements for the convoy now.”

“Of course, my lord.” 

Dedue breathed in and tried to remain perfectly passive for time it took them to cross the threshold. However necessary the evil, he could not say he had ever desired to return to Castle Fraldarius. Unfortunately, necessity was often a more decisive factor than desire.

The ride had been more arduous on tired legs than it had been the day before. They had left early, so even though they had traveled a farther distance, the sun was still in the sky, only just obscured by the open wall that ran around the grounds. When they reached the stable, Ashe began unbridling his own horse before the stablehand had been given a chance to take note of them. Dedue reached out to steady Ashe’s hand, and was met with a moment of barely contained annoyance. 

“You don’t know how these stables are handled Ashe.”

There was a moment of immediate concession. “No. No, of course.” 

It wasn’t another moment before a red-faced teenager came from the stables interior, covered to the knee with muck. 

“I think I might actually have a better handle on it than that, though.”

Dedue stifled the grin, as the stablehand made their way reluctantly over to them, stripping off their work gloves. “I don’t supposed this would be a bad time to inform you about future accommodations.”

“I’m not the one to ask.” “If you ask your lord to leave the notice with His Grace, the message will be delivered to the stablemaster.”

“If it’s easier I could tell the stable master right now. I have other important things to discuss with Lord Rodrigue, and I’d prefer not to have to ask for an escort back down here or take more of his time.”

“Oh, you’re…”

“Lord Ashe,” Rodrigue’s voice preceded him down the corridor. “And Dedue,” Lord Rodrigue’s gaze softened on him considerably. “I had heard from Gilbert that you had been fighting for his highness before… Well, but I wasn’t sure if you’d survived.”

“I know that I’m accepting the visit at your request, Lord Ashe,”

“By all means,” Ashe met Dedue’s gaze for just a moment, and unsure what Ashe saw there, his eyes widened and he sputtered backwards a moment. “If that’s agreeable to Dedue.”

“I’m honored, Your Grace.”

“One of my men will be close behind to lead you to your room when you’re ready, and take Dedue’s things up to his.” Ashe gave a small nod of assent, and looked to Dedue one more time, almost looking like he would reach forward and take Dedue’s hand for a moment before he left. No such gesture occurred. “Very well, follow me if you would, Dedue.”

“I trust your travels were eventful.”

“The ride was swift. Lord Ashe didn’t want to risk the chance of being trapped in a storm before reaching our destination.”

“Lord Ashe?” Rodrigue asked, and Dedue gave a gruff nod that gave no room for conversation on the topic. Far be it from Dedue’s mind to lose any semblance of decorum he was meant to keep. “How did you come to employment at Castle Gaspard?”

“Lord Ashe propositioned the position to me.”

“A gardener. That certainly is a change in career. I trust you’ve been adjusting to it well.”

“I spent a lot of time volunteering in the greenhouse at the Academy. It wasn’t uncommonly known.”

They turned the corner of the outside pathways into the castle proper, the air hung in the halls lighter than it did in Castle Gaspard, but it still stunk of mold and years of leaf rot that would require a full return of staff to clear out. 

“Most would have thought you’d become a knight. Ashe wouldn’t be able to promote you to the position, but there certainly are others who would have been interested,” Rodrigue lied. The duke led him down a secondary hallway, opening into a solarium. There was no draft, there were no staff, there was no reason to put on a show anymore. 

“Lord Ashe,” Dedue said pointedly, lest Rodrigue forget, “is the only one who would have appointed any position to me, and Gaspard is still only allowed to take a handful of knights into service.” Rodrigue gave a half upturned smile and took a seat, not bothering to ask Dedue to take his own. He did anyways. 

“Until future notice.”

“I have no plan to return to fighting unless it is absolutely necessary.” 

“I had heard that you were given full pardon to leave his highness’— may the goddess watch him— the moment you arrived. You had already been presumed dead.”

“I had a favor to pay back.”

“To his highness, yes—“

“Not to his highness,” that debt had been paid in full when Dedue had helped Dimitri escape the tower and his execution. “There are others to whom I’m indebted, and who I fought for. If his highness hadn’t been fighting for those same people, I never would have followed him so far in the first place.”

“And you still owe that debt?” Lord Rodrigue’s fingers laced in front of him, and Dedue cursed himself for a moment. Every card needed to be held close to the chest in these talks. 

“I told you. I do not plan to continue fighting if it isn’t necessary.”

“That’s a sensible answer, Dedue.” Rodrigue nodded thoughtfully. “I have heard rumors. Quite a few about some refugees traveling the wooded paths back to the east. It’s lucky that you’ve found employment it seems. I believe your intentions, but I feel I must advise caution as well. There’s no point in tearing up the entire garden bed just to remove a few weeds.”

There was maybe a retort or two he’d like to have given, about which ‘garden’ had been torn up by who, but Dedue was long past acting on such sentiments. 

“I believe I’ve proven myself an able enough gardener.” There was a moment. Two. Dedue had mild feelings about Duke Rodrigue his entire life, but all the pieces had slowly collected into two feelings; respect and distrust. At once they had something in common, but that commonality had died at Gronder, and again in Enbarr. “If you’ll remember from the letter sent by Lord Ashe, we’re not looking to you for any tips on tending the garden. Only on transplanting and restoration.”

“That can be just as hectic, if not more. I won’t work against you, but if complications arise I won’t help you either.” The duke leaned forward onto the table for a moment in contemplation before moving upward to his feet, inviting Dedue out the door with a “Forgive me, I’ve kept you long enough.”

Dedue stayed seated. “I was aware that there would be a price to pay for your help. The only thing stopping us from moving to the final phase of this is to avoid conflict.”

“So, Ashe is assisting you then.” Rodrigue slowly settled back into his seat and Dedue struggled to keep his face neutral. The duke was perhaps not so vain as the other lords tended to be, but letting him believe he’d uncovered a secret had the intended effect. “And how did you plan to avoid conflict, I wonder.”

“House Kleiman will attack any person from Duscur who comes too close to the border mountains. If another house claimed protection of the refugees—“

“It would still occur, I’m afraid to say.”

There was no reason to deny it. “House Kleiman can not afford an armed conflict, that is well known.” He waited for the other to make some kind of affirmation. “If the other lords in the Faerghus Territory, or if only a few specific lords, agree to the resettlement of Duscur by it’s people, House Kleiman would be required to allow it, if only for a small while.”

“You’re seeking protection then?” 

“Not without payment.” There was a steady look in Rodrigue’s eye. Something calculating and far away. “I never expected it to come to fruition, but his highness didn’t believe Duscur was responsible for the attack. He had thought to help me, eventually, in seeing Duscur’s people return to their home.”

“I heard… near the end, Dimitri had become quite changed. I’ve heard troubling things.”

“He only seemed to have transformed if you did not know him well.”

“That sounds like something my son had written to me.” Lord Rodrigue returned a smile that vanished as soon as it appeared. “My attention is divided right now. I cannot pledge full vigilance to the people of Duscur until other matters are settled.”

Rodrigue stood once more, and crestfallen Dedue followed him up this time. 

“If you have the support of  _ Lord  _ Ashe, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement which will allow me to lend my aid.”

——

  
  


The morning was, as ever, a learning experience. 

Ashe and Dedue had been housed separately enough that Ashe was unable to tell which room might be considered a guest room and which might be a room for standard proceedings or household duties. Dinner had been brought to, supposedly, both of their rooms with the promise that they would dine properly with Lord Rodrigue the next day. 

It was only in the morning, after pacing for the hour preceding dawn that Ashe came to the realization that he was not a child or being held for questioning. That, as a visiting dignitary he had some reign over the castle grounds and amenities. 

It had only taken another 20 minutes of deliberation before Ashe pulled on his boots and surcoat and decided to at least get a general understanding of how the castle was laid out. If he found Dedue in the process, all the better. 

He wasn’t 6 paces down the hall before Lord Rodrigue called out to him. “Good morning, your Grace.”

“Good morning. It’s good to see you’re awake. I was just about to send someone to see if you were available to take an early morning ride with me.”

It took all of Ashe’s restraint not to bow his head slightly as he responded, “It would be my pleasure.”

The morning air was set for a dull freeze, though the clear skies assured that for at least the next 3 hours, the ground would remain bare with the dead remnants of last summer's grass. The trails around the castle were easily marked by ware. There were patrol trails that winded around the outer city, splitting off from the main road which led from the castle gate out into the Faerghus countryside. 

Rodrigue led Ashe down one of the trails at a leisurely pace, while Ashe’s numb legs tried to keep the spurs apace so he could continue to follow. If he was able to walk anywhere the next day it would be a pleasant surprise.

Finally, Rodrigue led him further along off the trail, to a patch of heather that sparsely dotted the hill on one side, and ran along in a purple wave on the other. The horse Ashe sat upon, no longer the disciplined war horse he’d accompanied the other day, was happy to follow suit. 

Despite the cold, there was very little wind that rushed over the hillsides, and most of it had been caught in the valleys on either side kicking up dust from the trail or ruffling the heads of the grain on the other side.

“Have you heard anything from—” It was something Ashe had been instructed clearly not to say, and yet the question nagged on in the back of his mind. Ashe was also instructed to act perhaps, even more naive than he believed the other lords viewed him. And there was nothing that seemed perhaps as tactless as to ask anyways. “Have you heard anything from Felix?”

“Felix has always written to me dutifully, even if he would hate for me to say it like that,” Lord Rodrigue didn’t seem perturbed by the question. “He writes to me less often now, of course, but I’ve still received letters from him.”

A straight-forward answer. Ashe chanced again. “Have you asked him if he’s coming back?”

“I’ve been assured very thoroughly that as much as I would like to write back to my son, that he doesn’t want to be written back to.” Lord Rodrigue sighed. “I understand the precaution. I would never force Felix’s hand, but I would try to persuade him if I knew where he was. I have had a couple of other inquirers after him who might try to force him back, and I wouldn’t try to stop them. That brings me to another matter.”

Ashe pulled his mare away and redirected her as she got into a small dispute with Rodrigue’s horse over who should have a particular stalk of the grain. The duke waited until the horses were properly calm again. 

“Has there been a lot of fighting over the Blaiddyd territory?” Ashe looked up with curiosity. “I probably shouldn’t assume, but all of your letters have been on the subject.”

“It’s not so simple as infighting, unfortunately” Rodrigue looked properly admonished for his surprise, that Ashe should guess at his inquiry so easily. “It’s a difficult adjustment for us to not think of Blaiddyd as the royal line. It may seem foolish but none of us, in truth, want to stake claim to the King’s land. It seems treasonous.”

“I understand. Even now it’s hard to think of Fhirdiad as anything but the royal capital.” Ashe shook his head. “But if no one is trying to claim the land, the governance is yours, isn’t it? That hardly seems like a dispute.”

“I hold no wish to govern the Blaiddyd territory, and there are viable heirs. Rufus had quite a few children. I am ready to support Rufus’s oldest son in claiming the Blaiddyd territory.”

“Is there something else? You look like you’re not expecting me to agree with you.”

“The boy never knew who his father was. It’s obvious if you look at him, he definitely has the family features. He’s still well educated. Rufus made sure he and his mother were taken care of. He grew up with a governess and had been expected to eventually take the path to be a knight.”

“So he has a peasant upbringing.” Ashe gestured a little with his free hand. “I should be the last to disagree with that, in case you hadn’t noticed... or forgotten.”

“The problem, the real problem, is that the boy has no crest.” Rodrigue looked to Ashe for a moment with, what? Pity? Concern? “Which can’t be said of all Rufus’s children. A few of them do have the crest of Blaiddyd.”

“The other lords want a child with a crest to rule Blaiddyd.”

The confirmation was there in a nod of Rodrigue’s head. “I’ve met many of Rufus’s children and feel assured that the oldest of them will work the land and care for the people the best. He has a good head on his shoulders, and most importantly, compassion. I don’t think crests are the sole merit of a good ruler. My older son had no crest, but he was still notarized as my heir. A decision many others disagreed with, especially after Felix was born. I couldn’t have made Felix my heir on the whim of his crest. He was always very reactive and bad with people, despite his perceptiveness and devotion. Just as many people disagree with my decision as they did then. I was hoping I could trade you a favor for a favor.”

“Don’t get me wrong, your Grace, I understand where you’re coming from,” Ashe let out a sigh of laughter to relieve the stress. “That seems like a steep price for a few plants.”

“I was under the impression that you had other reasons for coming.”

Ashe was uncertain for just a moment over whether or not to lie. What usually worked, in these situations, was the inbetween. “I was hoping to strengthen the relationship between our territories. I’m afraid I haven’t gotten a hold of diplomatic writing just yet. I had been concerned, since you stopped sending letters, that I had slighted you somehow. I am sorry if I have, by the way.”

Ashe didn’t find anything particularly unkind when they met eyes, but he felt… seen through. Ashe didn’t relish lying, but he was good at it. Good enough that he hadn’t planned to be appraised as he was being now. “Dedue informed me of what your plans were.”   
  
“Plans? You’ll have to be more specific.”   
  
“I’m not interrogating you, Ashe. There’s nothing you need to defend.” Rodrigue reined in his horse just a little closer, as if there were anyone within the next league to hear their conversation. “I am willing to declare on behalf of Duscur’s resettlement in return for aid in the Blaiddyd territory.”

“I’m hoping you have something in mind. Of course,” Ashe dug in, “Of course, Rodrigue, I’m not expecting you to help for nothing but if you’re expecting an armed conflict or uprising… well I wouldn’t be coming to you for help if that was something I could assist you with.”

“I do have something in mind. Please, we can talk about it on our way back into town.”   


The leisurely pace of the ride continued back towards the main road, the sun just now having risen fully above the horizon.

“I have two ideas in mind actually. The first would be for you to direct your trade to Fraldarius and Blaiddyd for the next growing season.” Ashe nodded. In fake consideration. Or, well, he would have to consider it. They could find a way to make it work if they needed to. “The other idea was for you to convince House Dominic, Gautier, and Galatea to support Rufus’ older son.”   
  
Rodrigue said it as if it would be impossible, but given the two options, “You’re only looking for the other houses' support? Surely that’s something you could seek yourself.”

“Traditions aren’t given up so easily, Ashe. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s worth trying.”

“Of course not.” They had approached the main road. “I think it could be done. If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer a plan of contingency, to ease both of our concerns. If I fail in convincing the other houses to approve of your selected heir, I will still direct my trade to you. Is that acceptable?”   
  
“It’s more than acceptable, Ashe.” The feeling was immediately upon him that even though it was an acceptable arrangement for the Duke, it was a less acceptable arrangement for Ashe. 

For the remainder of the ride, they conversed about more trivial matters. It might have been nice to ask Rodrigue for advice, but Ashe had already crossed the boundary in which he could look to the other as a mentor. The role Ashe had to play, had to continue to play, was the role of someone who knew what they were doing. 

Ashe near collapsed when he dismounted, while Rodrigue went to check on the inner city patrol.. The squire put on stable duty this time was different, and took his reins with, once again, a baffled look which Ashe had to ignore. He had other things to attend to. And speaking of which, an insurmountable amount of dread beginning to build up. He ran as well as he could down the corridor to find Dedue, only realizing half way that he needed to flag down a servant to find where the other was staying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters from here on out should hopefully be a little more exciting.
> 
> Oh and also a thanks to my friend Miles, who doesn't normally pre-read my stuff but agreed to do it this time.


	6. A Week in Fraldarius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their plan halted in its tracks, Dedue and Ashe take a week to ignore the circumstances of their arrangement before they decide whether they should, as they say "quit while they're ahead". A week in which they consider the lesser implications of stopping where they stand.

Ashe was almost indistinguishable from the chair he sat in. Partially because every muscle in his body was overwrought, and there was no point in trying to hide it, here locked away, with only Dedue to see him. Partially because if he willed his mind into thought, the anxiety would almost certainly lead him to an early death. Dedue, for what it’s worth looked calm and steady even though Ashe knew, quite instinctively, he couldn’t be feeling any better about this. There was a small dish of butter in his hand, being spread evenly between two warm muffins that had been brought to the room only moments ago. Dedue handed one of them to Ashe. 

It was an unwarrantedly kind gesture, the kind that usually accompanies hard to hear news. He let himself soak in the comfort of it anyways. Dedue would speak his mind in a moment, but it was clear they would let this moment set in first.

Ashe took a bite from the bread, while Dedue went on with his own plate. The other waited one, two more bites before he opened his mouth to speak.

“Perhaps we should end our plan here, while we can.”  
  
“What?” Ashe had been expecting something hardto hear or shocking. Resignation hadn’t been in his mind. He set down his plate, for fear of dropping it. “You can’t mean that.”  
  
“I do. I was wrong to drag you into this.”

Dedue’s face remained impassive and unmoved, almost as if he was looking past Ashe altogether. And goddess forgive, but that did have him annoyed. He’d had far too much of that since arriving in Fraldarius to receive it from Dedue as well. 

“You didn’t drag me into this. I wanted to help.” It takes some agonizing straightening of his posture, but Ashe forced himself into Dedue’s like of sight. It did nothing to change Dedue’s expression. “I offered my help freely.” 

“Duke Fraldarius, has figured out the plan and called our bluff. He gave you two impossible tasks. He’s expecting you to take your word back. There will be no shame in it.”  
  
“There will be! If I don’t do this, things will always be this way. I’m worried about failing of course, but if I don’t do this one way or another nothing will have changed, not only for you, but for me as well.” That truth settled in the air, something Ashe hadn’t acknowledged. Maybe he hadn’t even realized it. “Maybe… Maybe this is good. I don’t think I would have ever tried to impress the other lords for my own sake. I might not have even considered it, but I think it has to be done anyways.”

The façade melted from Dedue’s face for just one moment. He looked full-body tired, and for that moment everything in Ashe reciprocated. “There are other things you have to prioritize. This has an affect on all the people in Gaspard as well now.”

“I’ve thought about that. I’ve been thinking about that since I’ve gotten here. I will eventually be at the mercy of something like this, anyways. I don’t have any political strength, I don’t have anything to offer that isn’t in trade. It might be a few months before another one of the territories can strong arm me into anything, but it will happen, won’t it?”

Dedue’s mouth straightened into a line that offered neither agreement nor disagreement. “Having that option open will mean more than you think, Ashe. It’s not worth giving up recklessly.”  


“I know that!” Ashe lowered his voice. He hadn’t meant to yell. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Dedue took his turn, conceding in the posturing between them. Ashe's frustrations were far from quelled. Nothing had any right to cause posturing between them. “I had thought this would be a task I could pay you back for. It’s clear that won’t be the case. That is why I can’t continue to ask for your help. This has become a debt I won’t be able to repay to you, and I can’t afford to owe myself to anyone else.”

Maybe he had been neglectful. Maybe they both had forgotten they were friends once. He hadn’t noticed the dark lines under Dedue’s eyes, and Dedue had not allowed Ashe to see this side of him either. 

“Please,” Ashe leaned forward to rest a hand on the fist Dedue had balled on the table half way between them, “please at least know that this could help me as well. I didn’t mean to make this an exchange between the two of us.” He hadn’t meant to make it a deal, he’d just wanted Dedue to stay. He couldn’t bring himself to say that. “Can we stop thinking about this as a trade?” 

“Even if you change the word for it, it doesn’t change what it is, and it doesn’t change the fact that you are the one paying the cost for now. The conditions would still be the same.”

“Then I’ll change them. I think I need to follow through with this whether it helps you or not. You can choose to back out, but know that if I have to do this I want it to help you as well.”  
  
Dedue’s mouth dropped open a small amount in surprise, but that moment came and went in the blink of an eye. “I’d forgotten you were so willful.”  
  
“Does that mean we’re still in this, together?”

A hand rested on top of his own for just a moment. “Please, take the week to consider it. This isn’t the kind of decision one should make when they’re tired.”  
  
“I’m not that tired.” Ashe pulled his hand away, feeling his chest and stomach ache in respose. There was a considerable amount of heat on his hand still, and he was glad he could at least say he was still flushed from the sting of the wind. Dedue was smiling at him now, too, though. “But you will let me help, right?”

“Give it until the end of the week.”  
  
“I will. I promise,” Ashe agreed, his mind already made up.

——

Strictly speaking, Ashe and Dedue hadn’t been talking since his arrival in Gaspard.

He and Ashe would converse about their plans, about the things they still had to do, would review notes of their lessons, and would have small exchanges while they were working in the kitchen. There were many things Dedue had been trying to ignore about Garreg Mach, but the one which kept approaching him was the fact that no one had talked to him strictly for the point of talking since they had left. 

The week in Fraldarius was an exception to the decided pattern of the past few months in that, despite everything, the pattern had continued.

Dedue had half expected Ashe to be avoidant from him after the first day of their visit. With the plan off the table, and with diplomatic concerns to attend to, he knew there would be no need for them to talk. It was time he hadn’t been sure how to fill, but knew he could. Ashe had seemed to have other plans.

They did go to the greenhouse that first afternoon. Dedue wasn’t sure which of the two lords had insisted the masquerade continue, but after a small reprieve, Ashe had appeared at Dedue’s door once more, holding the key to the greenhouse. 

The groundskeeper had already been in. It was obvious in the thick, humid air of the greenhouses interior, and the smell of fresh sun warmed soil. 

“Wow.” Ashe turned a small bit in the lane between the boxes, a gesture Dedue was compelled to copy. To his surprise, there was plenty of room for him to turn. Each window that crossed the arched ceiling was fully intact, boastfully sporting patterns in lightly color-tinted glass the sprawled from the crest of the door and across the wall.. 

Dedue’s eyes swept the boxes. “If only the selection of plants was as immaculate as the glasswork.”

There was a stifled laugh from the corner Ashe had wandered off to, “At least there isn’t a draft in here. It’s actually quite warm.”

Dedue leaned down to inspect one of the plants. It was the same as one of those he had seen in Gaspard, a hybrid fig plant whose fruit seemed to grow bright rather than dark as it moved towards ripeness. “I may have overlooked that factor. You should have that fixed if you want some of the trees to survive another winter.”  
  
“You don’t think there’s a tome that repairs glass do you? I wonder if we could find a copy. Although I guess we’d have to find a mage or bishop who could perform it as well.” 

“I’m fairly certain mending spells don’t work on inanimate objects.”

“Maybe I’ll have to tarp the plants over next winter then.”  
  
The draft caused by the opening door preceded the Duke as he entered. “I see you took to the greenhouse right away. I hope it’s to your liking.”  


Ashe responded immediately, “It’s absolutely amazing. I haven’t seen anything that’s not already in Gaspard, though.”

There should have been a strange tension there, Dedue thought for a moment. Then let the thought dissipate. There would be a weird tension there, if they had decided to let their halted plan continue onward. For the moment, Duke Fraldarius had the upper hand between them, and they had acknowledged that fact.

He exhaled, inhaled, on the next breath. “Sometimes, farmers keep their own propagation tents. Would you know of any nearby that might have what was described in the letter, your Grace?”  
  
“There are a few I could write to,” Rodrigue’s voice rose a small amount, calling out to specifically Ashe, “After dinner, though. I came here to remind lord Ashe that my dinner invitation still stands.”  


“Of course, your grace. I hadn’t thought otherwise. Does the groundskeeper need their key back?”  
  
“The one I gave you is a spare.”  
  
Ashe nodded and regained his feet completely. As he passed, he pressed the key into Dedue’s hand. “I’ll catch up with you afterwards okay?”

As the two left, Dedue was happy for the reprieve, but lost for any small companionship. Small companionship was something fleeting for him. Family, friends, stable connections in one place or another. These were the things that were meant to keep one grounded; Steady anchors that everyone held. It was not so, for him. 

The morning had brought a realization to him. Something that pulled at him, like one of the magical vortexes. He would focus on one task or another. There were flowers, small, round petaled, colored like chocolate and smelling just as husky and sweet, flowers that he hadn’t seen anywhere before. There was still something looming. 

He made preparations with the groundskeepers for propagation and transportation, showing the travel invoices for the rest of the convoy, and the cart that would be left in Fraldarius until the plants were ready to be taken. He walked away and felt overtaken by the feeling once more. 

He went to the Dukes library and looked at the untouched volumes that lined the walls. It had become something of a game, to his anxious and recovering teenage mind, to try to find volumes that had been produced in his mother language. There had been few in the month after he’d recovered from the wounds he’d received during the massacre, there were less and less with every year afterwards. He found one, two, three volumes. The last time he had read on the words had been strange, as though he had never known the words he was looking at. 

After over a years worth of traveling with the refugees, the words had become familiar again. A sense of familiarity he found much needed. He followed the words up into his room, certain that no one would miss the book, or at the very least that anyone who noticed it’s absence would presume it was in his hands.

It wasn’t quite the same as companionship, but it was something he had not been allowed for so long. And when he set it down that nothing returned. At the turn of the week, there were many uncertainties. Leaving Gaspard would be necessary if he decided to leave Ashe to his own devices, and it wouldn’t mean he could return back to the rest of the camp he’d been staying with. It meant he would be back to looking for a solution, stretching an empty hand out towards… Nothing. 

There was a knock. 

Dedue didn’t startle easily, but the sound had pulled him out of his thoughts so completely he’d been left stunned. A longer, softer knock followed in it’s presence, and before it finished Dedue was pulling himself to his feet.  


“Oh! Good, you are awake,” Ashe’s had taken a visible step back from the door upon it’s opening. “I hope you haven’t been waiting up. I didn’t think Lord Rodrigue would want my attention for so long.”

Dedue shook his head. “I’ve been reading.” He stepped aside to let Ashe in, and Ashe was immediately drawn towards the book on the table, drawing his fingers over the embossed images on the cover. 

“What’s it about?”

“It’s something like a chivalric tale.”

Ashe’s tone turned into something soft and teasing at that, “I didn’t know you read those kinds of things.”  
  
“I don’t,” Dedue responds honestly. 

“The lines are short. Unless that’s just the way the language is written.”

“It’s a story, but it’s written as a poem.”

“That’s interesting. I do love stories like that. I would love to read it someday.”

“It would be difficult. There are no more books that provide instruction on Duscur’s language.”

The smile fell off of Ashe’s face. “Oh. Dedue, I’m so…”  


Dedue waved the apology away. He had gotten used to cruel words, but he had never adjusted to receiving pity for wounds he had long pasted over. 

There was a moment of silence between them. Dedue had missed something essential in their conversation. It was a _conversation. _And Dedue would be obliterated by his own shame before he could admit this: It had been so long since he had spoken past necessity that he had forgotten the sign of casual communication. “It’s a poem told in parts. The hero arrives after a great tragedy. The city of his betrothed is lain to waste. He goes from building to building, recounting what each used to hold, and who used to live there. After coming from house to house, he comes to the realization that the one he loved is responsible for his betrayal.”

He hadn’t seen it, but Ashe had moved his chair closer, the book perched on the tables edge between them. “That scene depicts his discovery of the traitor. The arrows are fletched with feathers from a rare green bird, given as an engagement gift. The city destroyed is primarily known for agriculture, so the gesture is prudent and still luxurious.”

Ashe flipped to the next illustration, before meeting Dedue’s eyes. 

“Having properly recounted all those lost in the cities siege, he moves onward, vowing to forsake his beloved in order to visit justice on those who have died.” That description didn’t do justice to the metaphors and imagery in the passage, but Dedue was skilled in both languages in such a way that made translation difficult if not impossible to perform. “He doesn’t carry out this vow immediately. He travels for sometime. He speaks much about Duscur’s gods and the different major cities. I don’t know which city is meant to be depicted here… I think the next illustration is… No. Not too far, you’ve passed it…”

——

The third day the rest of the convoy arrived. With it, the staff began to treat Ashe less like a lost child, and the whispers that had been following Dedue down the hallways of Castle Fraldarius faded farther into the shadows. There was still been confusion. Now, at first glance, people mistook Ashe for a general rather than a merchant. 

“At least General is nearly true,” Ashe conceded.

Dedue eyed the horse he was washing down warily, hoping it wouldn’t start despite the blinders Ashe had fixed to it before they had begun their task. 

Ashe hadn’t seen Dedue for most of the past day, except for a small lunch they had taken while Lord Rodrigue was about on other business. “His Grace has taken to inform me that I shouldn’t take it personally. You know, generally speaking, I don’t think he’s trying to be rude, I think he just sees me as a kid.”

The horse lifts its leg slightly, and Dedue makes an unnecessary move to avoid it. Ashe had kindly set up cross ties as a precaution for the horse, but it did nothing to ease Dedue’s nerves. “You did fight in the war,” Dedue adds as a belated counter-point.

“In the resistance before that too.” Ashe adds, “I’ve been informed that the standard noble upbringing in Faerghus is pretty bloody.”

“I was given the impression that the bloodiness was not class specific.”  
  
“Maybe not, but I didn’t grow up learning how to fight like Ingrid and Felix did.”

The horse has started to get somewhat restless, and Dedue backs away completely. “Could I have some assistance?”  
  
Ashe takes a moment to set down the brush he was using to scrub down his own horse, drawn to Dedue’s horse as if he knows immediately how to resolve the issue. Even though he’s seen in before, Dedue is somewhat surprised, thrown back into immediate ease when the horse does calm. His tone is calming, intonation moving as though he’s speaking words, even though Dedue is sure it’s gibberish. “I should have known he’d get restless with the blinders on. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I was just… unsure of what to do.”  
  
“It’s really nothing to be scared of, they just need a little reassurance,” Ashe turned to him a hand on his hip. “Are you scared of horses, Dedue?”  
  
The tone Ashe usedwasn’t judgemental, but he feels a hot rise of embarrassment boil from his stomach up to his face. “I’ve been… trampled once or twice.”  
  
“Goodness, is it really that bad? Here I want to try something. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” the answer comes out instinctively.

“Okay, good. I want you to remember that the horse is still attached to the cross ties, so your chances of getting trampled are non-existent. Walk up to him and stroke his nose. Yes. Just like that. You want to be close enough where he can smell you. Okay, now speak to him.”  
  
“What should I say?”

“Oh. Hm…. how about complimenting him. That’s usually an easy entry point. You can also just say his name a couple of times, like talking to cats.”

“I don’t know his name.”  
  
“Oh! It’s Emerys.” 

Dedue does as instructed. He doubted it had the same placating tone that Ashe had taken, but he tried nonetheless. After a few moments Ashe stepped in, just barely pressing into Dedue’s side as his arms crossed over to take off the blinders, face red from the midday sun. His fingers worked over the straps at around the horses muzzle and ears, after a quick call for Dedue to pay attention. The blinders pulled away and revealed the horses big dark eyes, but when they saw Dedue the horse was not called to any sort of frenzy. 

“There we go, good morning Emerys.” Ashe gave his own small pat to the horses nose. “If he gets restless again, you’ll need to calm him just like you’re doing now, but he knows you’re his friend now.”

“He might forget by the next time he sees me.” He continued to pet at the horses nose and neck as Ashe stepped away, surprised when the animal pushed a little further into his arms. Dedue found himself calmed, overall, by the affection. The worries persisted that the horse might suddenly change his mind.

“Horses aren’t so fickle. He’ll remember and return whatever kindness you show to him.” Ashe had crossed the small section of yard back to his own horse. “I would still stay away from the others, though. Once we’ve worked through your worries, I think they’ll be a little less anxious when they see you.”

———

Ashe was climbing the ladder up one of the bookcases of the Fraldarius library. “Lord Rodrigue said there might be a spell book for mending broken objects somewhere in here.”

“Please try not to fall.”

Once Dedue had turned his attention to the rest of the library, he had come to the realization that most of the books were either informational studies or tomes. Most of the Kingdom libraries held rare or valuable books, editions that had been pored over with an artists touch, or else had been produced in the time of hand scribing. Other tomes were so old, they had been produced when spell casting would destroy pages after they had been cast, or resolved the issue by removing the users energy or life force.

Dedue had set to his own end of the same shelf, skimming over the titles. 

“Aha!”  
  
“You found something?”  
  
“No, but I found a chess strategy book. I’m getting tired of losing to His Grace, and I don’t think I can convince him to let me retire after dinner without playing.”  
  
That night resolved with Ashe poring intently over the chess book, while Dedue skimmed over an informational book about Northern River fish, before the libraries attendant ushered them off for the night, the tome forgotten.

———

The sixth and final day approached. Ashe left to entertain Duke Fraldarius for one more day, finally able to ride a horse again. Dedue had sought out the other two books he had found on the first day in the library. They were just the same, traditional poems and stories written in the Duscur style. He didn’t pull them out to read them, but he was struck somehow. What was left were not the things that could be recreated in the Faerghus language. They were not instructional manuals, or informational books, of which there were several dotted through out the Duke’s collection. 

He had been more struck when Lord Rodrigue had sought him out amongst the stacks. “They were difficult to come by,” the approach of his steps had been loud enough that they did not startle Dedue. 

“It’s difficult to come by any.”  
  
“There used to be more, but the Archbishop asked for most of what I had. She was afraid that most of the volumes in the Kingdom would be torched after what happened. Unfortunately, she was correct.”

Rodrigue waved a hand for Dedue to follow, his face and posture so much softer than they had been at the beginning of the week. Dedue followed, out of the library and further down the hallways. “Lord Ashe is taking some time out with the guard. He was curious about how they decide upon their rotation,” came the answer to an unsupplied question. 

Where Dedue was led was the duke’s private study. He opened the doors wide, and walked in stopping when he reached the shelves aligned on either side of his desk. “Here we are.” A book slid out, written in Duscur’s script. 

A book of fairytales. 

Dedue opened up the book, careful to not bend the spine. The book had clearly been left unused for a long time. The pages fluttered over stories he knew, and did not. He remembered some of them, reading them to his sister at night. Others he saw in his mother’s hands. Tears felt too imminent to continue looking through.

“Why would you keep this here.” Dedue pushed the book back towards the duke.

“It’s the most important of all of them,” Rodrigue pushed the book back towards Dedue. “The stories we tell our children are the most important. They’re reflections of what we hope will be. Please, accept this as a gift… or an apology. For all the things I can and cannot do.”

“This is a… lofty gesture, your grace.”

Rodrigue shook his head. He would never show something as vulnerable as sorrow to him, and Dedue was well aware, but there was something similar to the shadow of it on his face. “It’s small in comparison to what is owed to you, Dedue. That is all I can say of the truth.”

———

Dedue had arrived at Ashe’s room shortly after finishing his packing to take his share of Duke Fraldarius’ parting gift.

Ashe had admitted to not being one to take part in recreational drinking as he poured the wine between two fluted glasses, with an embarrassed “Is that too much?” when Dedue’s eyes widened at the amount of wine he had poured in each glass.

They had taken the glasses as they were anyways. It was not nearly so inundating as the drinks Dedue had learned to avoid, but it brought about a few peels of loose laughter from Ashe. His face was brought to a semi-permanent flush and Dedue could feel his face grow warm to the touch to match. 

They had spent part of the night bent over the table in Ashe’s room, exchanging stories of the lives they’d lead at the Academy, Ashe mid story, “I was surprised as well. I didn’t think Ignatz of all people could be competitive. If anyone threatened my life over an archery contest, I would have taken a guess at Leonie.”

Dedue hummed in response, properly amused. He hadn’t gotten to know most of the other students. His attentions had strayed from the prerogative he and Dimitri had set at the academy, but not so far that he had looked for friends from the other houses. Ashe reached for the nearly empty bottle between them, and Dedue pushed his arm away by the wrist. 

His eyes wandered briefly up the path to from Ashe’s wrist to his collarbone, to mouth, to eyes. He had thought the wine had made him more tired than anything else, but he felt himself flush farther at the unintended boldness of the gesture. Ashe’s mouth quirked, mischievous, and Dedue worried for a moment it was because his eyes had lingered there too long. It took another moment, and Ashe raising a refilled glass to his lips for Dedue to realize he had somehow spirited the bottle away despite Dedue’s attempt to stop him.

“You don’t need anymore of that.”  
  
“We’re not leaving until fairly late tomorrow! It will be fine.” Ashe let out another laugh when Dedue released an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t drank this much since the end of the war.”

Dedue stole away Ashe’s glass and took a drink from it, previous fear of boldness taken away by the giddy air Ashe’s voice had left. 

“You know, I had been angry with you at first. Everyone was sure you had died at Gronder, and I understand now that there was a sense of urgency for you to leave, but you never even said goodbye.”

Dedue’s face heated, a bit more. “I haven’t grown quite accustomed to saying goodbye.”

Ashe waved it away. It was already something done and decided, not his point. “I realized with all of this… I’ve been acting like we have all the time in the world to talk now, but we don’t really, Just because we’re working together now, that doesn’t mean this won’t be the last time we’ll see each other.”

“Ashe,” the atmosphere was all too perceptible, stifling suddenly where it had been light. He hadn’t meant to leave the open silence. 

“I know I’m taking a long time, but please let me get to the finish.”

Ashe took a second, folded his hands on the table, stared at them, and then reluctantly looked back up to Dedue. “We used to have so much time with one another when we were at the academy. Sometimes I feel like I took that for granted. All the study sessions, and trouble the others would get in. Things weren’t perfect then, but being around everyone made everything easier to deal with. Sometimes I wish I had spent more time with everyone. Marianne, Annette, Felix, Caspar. You.” The last was said so quietly, Dedue suspected he imagined it, or wished it. It only broke into the reality of the moment when Ashe continued. “Do you remember what our last conversation was about?”  
  
Dedue let his mind rest on it. There had been very few fond thoughts or memories the two months before the invasion. “I don’t.”  
  
“I don’t either. ”

He thought about reaching across and holding Ashe’s hands in his own, mirroring Ashe’s own gesture from the start of the week. He felt as though Ashe would crumble under that weight. Worse, perhaps that he himself would crumble upon the impact, the weaker of two rocks left to weather away in a hard place.

“You’re not the only one who gets lonely, Ashe.”  
  
“Is this really just loneliness?”

Dedue, in his own thoughts, had no choice but to agree to that sentiment. Had to answer it with the sentiment that had been carrying him away from the engulfing fear that waited at the end of the week. “We still have tomorrow.”

He smiled, and Ashe smiled back, the gap between them closed by their hands, a gesture he hadn’t perceived until he’d completed it. One more culmination of an unspoken wish.

———

Duke Fraldarius was gracious in his sending off. The agreement, to Dedue’s disdain, had been signed; that Ashe Ubert, Lord and protectorate of Gaspard would provide aid of one kind or another to Fraldarius in the coming year. Despite Dedue’s suspicions, Rodrigue did not look non-plussed by Ashe’s final agreement. There was a fondness in their parting words and gestures, and he had to wonder if Ashe had won the Duke over into a simpler agreement or if the Duke truly believed in the efficacy of his plan.

As they wandered into town, a light snowfall began to settle over the town market. Emerys was easier to guide through town than the messenger horse had been, despite the fact that it was Market Day once again, and the streets were filled with children giggling and trying to catch the loose drift of snow on their tongues. 

Dedue and Ashe, for their part, stopped by one of the sweet meats stalls, carrying the confections with them to the edge of town where they could finally hear each other again. 

“I think the ride to Gaspard will be easier with four days. I’ll admit making the trip in two days was probably a mistake.”  
  
“Lord Rodrigue seems quite taken with you now, it wasn’t for nothing.”  
  
“Oh, you think so? I was really worried I’d lost my chance of making a good impression for good.”  
  
Dedue pondered a moment, as they mounted their horses over how to voice his disagreement. “Lord Rodrigue is a difficult person. He doesn’t like to be threatened with or caught at a disadvantage. If you had come specifically to become acquainted, his approach might have been… more forgiving.”  
  
“Well, I can hardly blame him.” 

They rode down the main road to where it fell off into countryside. The snow was hardly a shower, melting upon contact with the grass, and immediately dissipating into dark drops as they settled across their outer coats. 

“Is this where we part ways?” Ashe did not look towards Dedue as he spoke, not until a moment passed between them, and Ashe’s eyes caught him out of the corner. “Of course, I dislike being idle so I… I know I promised to give it until the end of the week but I’ve already arranged a trip to visit Lord Dominic. You could still come with me.”

“You really plan on following through with this.” Dedue looked forward, trying to copy the detached look Ashe was giving the horizon. Whatever Ashe did or did not see, Dedue could not follow his gaze.  
  
“Yes.”

“I cannot let you carry out this plan alone.”

Ashe looked to him suddenly, a fragile fear. Emerys’ eyes as they learned to recognize Dedue. Dedue’s own gaze when he saw the book of fairy tales written in Duscur’s script, the same book which sat wrapped securely in his bag. 

“You’ll continue to let me help you then?”

Dedue gave a curt nod. The lightness of Ashe’s astonished eyes did nothing to quell the guilt of his decision.  
  
“Thank you! Thank you, Dedue. I won’t let you down.”  


“We agreed. This is about you as well, now. I will help you to whatever extent I am able.” Dedue’s heart hammered heavy with the words. So true, they were almost false. “Because you’re my friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys are bonding. Here’s my much needed follow up to having to write the most difficult and dry thing I’ve ever had to write. I’m resigning from my PhD in Rogridue Achille Fraldarius studies, I refuse to write that thesis or him for more than 3 paragraphs ever again. 
> 
> The book Dedue has is a reference to the ode written by King Imru Al-Qays and also to my favorite chivalric poem of all time, “Ser Gawain and the Green Knight”. You probably didn’t glean either of those off of what I wrote, but I wanted to mention them because I love old chivalric poems. I Love Them. 
> 
> The plant mentioned is.... a hybrid fig I don't remember the name for... but it is a real type of fig. The flowers mentioned are chocolate cosmos which grow best in warmer, tropical climates.


End file.
